“The society which has abolished every kind of adventure makes its own abolition the only possible adventure.” Paris, May 1968


Friday 16 January 2009

Rumpole creator dies.

After the sad news of the death of Patrick "The Prisoner" McGoohan comes the demise of an unlikely hero of mine, Sir John Mortimer. I say unlikely because if ever anyone deserved to be described as a champagne socialist it was Mortimer.  Although an unashamed member of the upper middle class he was a thorn in the side of the establishment and as a barrister always seemed to be defending cases that interested me; most famously Lady Chatterley's Lover, Oz and the Sex Pistols. As a writer he will probably be best remembered for Rumpole of the Bailey.
We can be consoled by the possibility of  The Prisoner and Rumpole reruns on the box.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'll miss the hell out of John Mortimer and genuinely mourn the fact we've reached the end of new Horace Rumpole books! It's like losing two fine men on the same day.

Cheers,
Ellie Reasoner
Indian Hill, Ohio, USA